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After The Video Review: Lords Of Xulima Hours Played: 12 hoursPrice: $19.99 USDI normally do this anyways and I had a lot to say so I just kept it in this format.The Good:Old school style with new school mechanics:it has kind of an old school feel of ultima in a way but it’s supported by new age combat and graphics.Interesting combat game-play:basically if your After The Video Review: Lords Of Xulima Hours Played: 12 hours Price: $19.99 USD I normally do this anyways and I had a lot to say so I just kept it in this format. The Good: Old school style with new school mechanics: it has kind of an old school feel of ultima in a way but it’s supported by new age combat and graphics. Interesting combat game-play: basically if your enemy is using a melee weapon and he’s to the far left of the screen he can’t attack the far right without moving first, which costs half a turn to move.
In addition to that it’s all turn based combat with weapons and skills that can stun and while not as comprehensive as say final fantasy x and it’s turn based system it’s still pretty good. The voice overs are pretty good: often the proper voice can make or break a game, but they pretty much nailed it here the narrator and the voice of god sound very appropriate and usually are dipping with dramatic feel to it. The environments are pretty well detailed and everything looks good: it actually a good thing to be a developer on Steam and not have your game look like it was done in MS Paint and here it looks really well done, with good detail in pretty much everything you encounter and every where you go. It has a Steam workshop: there is too many mods and for the most part they haven’t done too much in terms of really outlandish stuff, but it’s always nice to have. The Bad: The outright necessary grinding: I’m not kidding here you WILL grind in this game you WILL kill every enemy in every area if you want to continue on your quest there is no maybe here. But wait there’s more! The enemy's are finite and you get a bonus for killing all of them that you will need, so you LITTERY have to go everywhere to fight every enemy.
Nov 14, 2014 Lords of Xulima for PC game reviews & Metacritic score: An RPG set on the fictional continent of Xulima, where Gods and man once walked the land together. Features over one hundred hours of gameplay.
The lack of skills: the ones they do have are more trial and error and outside of the divine summoner class it feels like most characters really don’t have a lot of skills in the beginning and as they level up they still feel really under powered. Complete lack of explanations: most of the skill icons you can’t click on so you don’t know what they do same with the icons on the weapon stat’s, even concepts like when poison or bleeding will affect you is never explained, Also it never gives you a look at what skills you character will receive way down the line so you're never sure what you're building towards. Often times completely unrealistic with its difficulty: somehow even after you take down nearly EVERY enemy in EVERY part you can go in a map if you didn’t build you didn’t min/max your characters correctly then congrats you get to start all over again from the beginning of the game. It has such an unforgiving difficulty that even if you have been playing CRPG’s your entire life you're still going to lose, that being said however you're probably going to restart to get your revenge (after you buy a new keyboard). The DLC feels like a slap in the face: I swear it like the devs when they making them were like “aww is it too hard for you? That’s ok you can just spend more of your money too make it allll better.” It has a weird stutter when you run: this could just be my computer but it has a really weird jerky stutter when your character starts running again it could be just me but it’s weird.
The Summary: This game just is not approachable by anybody who isn’t direly serious about needing a challenge in a CRPG and Dark Souls & Bloodborne just aren’t your thing, everybody else just needs to stay away from this title because the only thing you’ll find with this game is frustration and a lot of broken keyboards, but if you can make it past all that there is a good game here albeit one I can’t recommend but a good game all the same. Fun until it gets old. I really loved this game for a while.
Reminded me a bit of the simple fun I had playing the Ultima games back in the 80's.It's got the usual things that you like from RPGs. Vanquish crossword. The character creation, the battle with monsters, the loot, the leveling, etc.Again for a while but then after so many hours, you will see a lot of it is the same; in particular you Fun until it gets old. I really loved this game for a while. Reminded me a bit of the simple fun I had playing the Ultima games back in the 80's. It's got the usual things that you like from RPGs.
The character creation, the battle with monsters, the loot, the leveling, etc. Again for a while but then after so many hours, you will see a lot of it is the same; in particular you spend the majority of the time in battles. So repetitive my shoulder actually started to ache from the same repetitive moments, and I'd literally get sleepy doing the same things over again. Although this goes a lot for other RPGs of this style (like the final fantasy style et al). Then at first you see a lot of the world is the same and rather bland. It lacks direction. There is a story behind it, but it feels like it's a lot of aimless wandering, again over a lot of scenery that got bland.
Finally the classes are not hashed out as good as they probably could be. Some are over powered, some are basically useless. You would expect that a typical balanced party setup like: A tank, cleric, thief, and Mage, then one extra like a Bard for the buffs or CC, would work great.
But it turns out the way the game balance works you'ed be better off with more tanks, or otherwise high HP and defense guys. I though a thief was needed to have a lock picking, disarming expert, but it turns out I could have had the main 'explorer' character learn those skills and a thief archer was almost useless in battle. The mechanics are that AOE CC (area of effect, crowd control) characters are some of the best, as the simple fact that whom ever has the most to attack gets the most hits in.
If you can lock the enemy up the less damage you will take, and killing them faster en mass will save you a lot of the tedium. You are best to read some kind of guide before you start, rather then using your intuition from previous RPG experiences.
Overall worth the price since you will get a lot of RPG enjoyment out of it, but I doubt you will make it to the end. First 10 hours with that game are like 'wow, it's 1998 again and I'm exploring new Baldur's Game for the first time'. But after that, you come to the town looking exactly as the first one and you have to do.
Almost exactly the same things. Just in different locations. So, this game is awesome, but it's getting boring and schematic. I really liked this game, but to be fair, I cant' rate First 10 hours with that game are like 'wow, it's 1998 again and I'm exploring new Baldur's Game for the first time'. But after that, you come to the town looking exactly as the first one and you have to do.
Almost exactly the same things. Just in different locations. So, this game is awesome, but it's getting boring and schematic. I really liked this game, but to be fair, I cant' rate it higher than 7, because it started to bore me after first few hours and finally I couldn't even finish it. I'm a fan of turn based RPGs, and this one is getting on my nerves - I find myself thinking - why am I clicking on these monsters for hours, cant I go play something better? Wizardry8, Jagged Alliance, King's Bounty and more recently Divinity Original sin - all of these are examples of superb turn based games, where the core of the game - turn based combat was fun and Tedious. I'm a fan of turn based RPGs, and this one is getting on my nerves - I find myself thinking - why am I clicking on these monsters for hours, cant I go play something better?
Wizardry8, Jagged Alliance, King's Bounty and more recently Divinity Original sin - all of these are examples of superb turn based games, where the core of the game - turn based combat was fun and challenging. In this game battles are too long and too tedious to be enjoyable.
Sure, the game promises 100 hours gameplay, but you will soon realize why it is so - you will be repeating the same boring fights over and over and over again. For example the forest of Nabros has the same patrol of 10 soldiers, which you will be running from until you can defeat them. Once you can beat one patrol, you can beat all of them, and it becomes a grind. Then you will be running to town to buy your +5 speed blessing every 24 in-game hours.
While you can push towards new lands and get more challenging fights, you will still be pestered by hordes of invisible roaming encounters which offer you an option to run/camouflage, but no autoresolve, meaning you WILL evenbually be forced to fight these. The game deserves a credit for exploration - this is the true strength of this game. Dungeons are pretty cool - there are 4 castles, 8 temples an 8 towers to explore plus a number of smaller dungeons. These are well thought out with traps, secret doors and various hints dropped around.
Puzzles are decent, there's a number of 'type answer here' kind of riddles. The game offers some non-linearity - you can go as far as you can, as long as you can defeat the guards at zone transitions. Unfortunately the power levels of these game are rising steeply - you simply won't kill a group of 200hp guards which hit for 30 damage if your toughest tank has 100hp and 20 damage. Large portions of the game are blocked off by these 'Titanic' challenges that you cant beat until much later. If you made a mistake of attacking guards in the first town too early, you will be locked into a very small game area where you will have to grind for 3 hours before you can defeat the 10 man patrols that box you in from the northern lands.
This brings me to the next gripe - ridiculously beefy enemies which offer no challenge. 400hp treants, 800hp dinosaurs, etc.
3 of my damage dealers can do 20-40 damage per attack. There's no challenge to these fights -tank and spank, repeat. The RPG system is OK - your characters can learn new skills as they level and spend skillpoints on improving existing skills.
There are skill books and mushrooms that reward exploration by improving character stats. The equipment system is rather poor. Too often I found chests with like 100gold x 5 - all slots in the chest are filled with gold, there's rarely any equipment drops. The two vendors I found don't restock frequently, so at level 14 I'm continuously sitting on 6000 gold that I have nothing to spend on. Most of the equipment is both skill level and stat locked, so a sword might require 8 sword skill and 18 strength and agility. Overall, I doubt I will play this game through the entire 100 hours of gameplay.
Ok, so I haven't put in 120 hours. I played the game for about 10, that is enough surely for any RPG. There are some good features to this game and I realise it is an indie game so naturally there are budgetary limitations.
That said, the game is just too grindy and the reward for effort does not even come close to what I enjoy in RPGs. I can handle grindy games, I have completed Etrian Ok, so I haven't put in 120 hours. I played the game for about 10, that is enough surely for any RPG. There are some good features to this game and I realise it is an indie game so naturally there are budgetary limitations. That said, the game is just too grindy and the reward for effort does not even come close to what I enjoy in RPGs. I can handle grindy games, I have completed Etrian odessey and many other games where it seems you are on a treadmill.
The difference is when the combat and progression complement each other. Xulima does not do this in my opinion. The food mechanic is just dopey, pointless busy work, I don't think it add anything to tactical gameplay No point having a 100+ hour of RPG if 80 of it is the grind to get to the next quest area.
Lords of Xulima is a great homage to the classic isometric RPGs of old. In many ways, the clunky, non intuitive, and downright challenging aspects of those games are featured in Lords of Xulima, and in other ways Lords of Xulima brings in some modern conveniences (in a good way) that should make the game much more friendly to those inexperienced in this sort of RPG.
With that said, there is a caveat. Lords of Xulima is probably not for everyone. The difficulty will be a huge turnoff for some people (even on the easiest setting), as will the sheer amount of learning and familiarity you need to have with the various systems and UI of the game to be good at it. That learning curve and the amount of necessary time to become somewhat competent will be a bit of an annoyance for a lot of people. However, I encourage you all to give this game a chance. It is a great window into some classic RPG games and is just a great game in its own right.
That brings up a conundrum in how to approach this review: from the standpoint of those who already like classic RPGs or from those that are unfamiliar with them. I will try my best to service both, but regardless I think this is a great game everyone can enjoy .
A mechanic that exemplifies this dilemma is food. Throughout the game you always have to make sure that you have a good amount of food stored for your travels. Sometimes you will go a good while without the ability to get some food so you better make sure you have enough to get where you're going. There are a lot of mechanics that tie into time as well. For example, if a character is fatally wounded they need to spend 24 hours in an inn somewhere (if you don't have a spell, potion, etc. that can cure them). And just the fact that walking around will slowly deplete your food, faster or slower depending on the terrain.
That type of 'hardcore' mechanic can divide people and exemplifies many other mechanics in Lords of Xulima. Some may find it a chore to constantly have to search/purchase food and be wary of it. Others may find it a neat mechanic that keeps you engaged. For me, I think it is a mechanic that keeps you thinking and constantly in a state of mind to keep your party in good shape. It creates its own economy that you have to be aware of, making time/travel a commodity in many ways, rather than a straight tax on time because of its implementation with other mechanics.
Another daunting system to some will be the character customization. Lords of Xulima eases you into it when you first create a character, choosing from nine classes and nine different deities (different stat increases). But, the real customization in the game comes from the different skills and abilities you can acquire and purchase. Again, annoying to some, there doesn't seem to be any way to respec (clear your skills and choose new ones). However, the ability to purchase skills helps to alleviate that problem, so if there is something you wish to have all you have to do is work toward it, nothing is restricted.
There are a lot of different skills to choose from too, some which are useful and some that don't seem too useful (at least not what I found, but that could be my own ineptitude). Lords of Xulima may take some advice in the less is more department, but the vast majority of skills will have a use - especially when used in tandem with another.
Combat in Lords of Xulima is going to take a huge chunk of time. Some battles will take forever to go through and, at least to me, in an annoying way. Way too much of the game relies on RNG (chance, basically). It is difficult sometimes to develop a strategy to a certain encounter to only have it fall on its face time and again because a certain party member kept missing. In some ways Lords of Xulima seems to stack the RNG against you, at least to me is annoying.
Relying on RNG to a large extent is lazy game design. It can have its fun uses here and there, but in this case it forms an artificial difficulty in that it ensures that things will be messed up almost 1/3rd of the time (that may be a little exaggerated, but it is close to that).
It puts you in difficult situations that you have literally no control over (difficult situations not created by the developer either). It would not be nearly as bad if there was a more reliable way to recover from a bad string of RNG, but there isn't. You could just go a whole battle getting screwed over by chance, which can get aggravating quickly.
With that said, the combat can actually be pretty fun, as long as that RNG does not play too big of a role. RNG makes it all the more difficult because there is a reasonable amount of strategy in the combat when you get more into the game. Having to move characters around your combat screen, when to use certain abilities, paying attention to the rotation of turns, and reacting to poor (or good) RNG make for a lot to consider on every turn and RNG makes it hard to assess a situation.
The story sets up an epic adventure. The main character, Gaulen, has been sent by one of the Gods of old to help end the conflicts between men. There is a pretty cool backstory and mythology to the game if you pay attention. However, the overall story is not so memorable as to cause too much excitement or to make many people return to the game. Lords of Xulima is not something that I will likely replay just to experience again, but the game has so much content I don't think that is a worry.
The better parts of the writing come in the side stories and things that you interact with. Every place you wander to has something going on with it, some of which are more interesting than others. Those are where most will find enjoyment in the writing and storytelling. The epicness of the main story sets itself up for failure in a way as it sets high expectations, leaving the meat of interaction to small chunks as you explore.
Luckily, some Lords of Xulima's biggest problems only come in minor presentations. The artwork is wonderful for the most part. The environments are very aesthetically pleasing as are the backgrounds in various combat areas. However, much of the 3D modelling leaves much to be desired. There are some that look pretty okay, but many that don't look that great at all. Some NPCs in the game look quite nice, but that just may be because they are so tiny.
The voice acting is probably the worst part about Lords of Xulima, and it is not so terrible, but it definitely is not great. Again, some is alright, but most of it is just below average. Luckily, there is not so much of it that it becomes to much of an annoyance.
This was all general, as there is just way too much in Lords of Xulima to go into the specifics. For example, you have to go and liberate temples for the main quest, of which there are 8 and that took me over 10 hours to save even one. Lords of Xulima has a massive amount of content that will take too many hours to even guess to complete entirely, let alone just doing what is necessary to complete the main quest.
It is a great game to get lost with and makes me excited to see what Numantiam Games can do in the future, as this is a great title to debut with. You can get Lords of Xulima on Steam right here.
Numantium Games provided TechRaptor with a review copy.
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